by Jody Klaire
Renee headed to the side Jones’s kids sat on. The cloud rumbled over them. “On gala night we can get you all to a place, get you somewhere safe.”
“But?” It was one of Frei’s group. A tall boy who looked torn between his loyalty to her and his need to run.
“It will be a lot riskier for you. It’ll be harder to get you out.” Frei’s tone was unyielding and blunt.
“So we run now.” He turned to the others in her group. “We leave before they have chance to find us.”
I held up my hands. “Thing is, we need your help.”
“Without every one of you, Caprock will continue to operate. They will continue to sell people. Those kids younger than you won’t have us to get them out.” Renee glared up at the cloud. I was sure she could see it but how?
Jed let go of Miranda, a frown wrinkling his brow. “My little sister is here. Franny. I’m not leaving without Franny.”
“Help us get them all out.” Frei’s voice filled with more emotion than I’d ever heard. A true plea from deep in her heart.
“How can we bring them down?” Miranda asked, her eyes on Jed. “They are in control. The way you’re talking, we can’t exactly tell the police.”
“Money.” Frei focused on her. “If each one of you shows up on gala night and passes, they go bankrupt.” She put her hands on her hips. “You just have to turn up, pass, and we can get you to safety.”
“How does that help the others?” Jessie sounded desperate to help. Her aura bubbled with it.
“If you’re there to pass,” Renee said, Frei must have filled her in now. “That fulfils the contract of education.”
“There’s a window between that pass and you being collected that the school is liable for your . . . value.” Frei fiddled with the ring on her finger. “You’re worth more together than this place can afford.”
“Will they come after us?” Ian shivered after he spoke. The cloud hovered above him.
“No.” Renee strode over to Ian. “You’ll be flown to a base, given new identities.”
“Besides they will be too busy running from the people they owe money to.” Frei walked to the door.
The fear cloud shrank further. The students looked to one another, mutterings and whisperings filling the air.
“This has to be your choice. Every one of you has to make it. If you want to run now, we won’t stand in your way.” Frei’s tone was filled with rawness. Her eyes blazed with it. That energy. Hope. Faith. Pulsed out from her once more.
I looked to Renee who nodded. Energy pulsed off her too. It was up to them now.
Frei put her hand on the door, ready to let anyone out if they wanted to run. The fear cloud grew. A tentacle dropped toward one of Jones’s kids. I strode his way and dropped to my haunches in front of him.
“Fight it,” I whispered, trying to show him every bit of comfort I could with just a smile. “Believe you can beat it.”
He clamped his hands together. “I’m scared.”
“Me too, Stevie,” Jed called out. “I’m peeing my pants.”
A rumble of laughter crackled through the room. The tentacle stopped its progress and hung there, inches from the kid’s head.
Jed stood up. “If anyone can get us out, it’s Samson.” He nodded at me. “Let’s bring them down!”
The lump in my throat stopped any words from coming out. All I could do was nod his way.
Energy shot from him.
“Me too!” Jessie stood up, proud. “Samson got us this far, she can get us out too.”
The energy rippled from her, spreading, rapid, like a wave.
“Count us in.” Leigh-Anne got up, Ty and Jane with her.
“If Locks thinks it can be done, so do we.” All four of Frei’s group stood up at the back, Sawyer’s remaining kid with them. They nodded to Jed and the others and then to Frei.
There was genuine shock and misty eyes from her in response. The cloud shrank again.
“Why not?” Ian said, getting to his feet with a shrug. Ryan gripped his hand and he was yanked to his feet.
“Yeah, beats running alone, right?” Ryan grinned. “I want to wipe that smug grin off Smyth’s face.”
Light bounced from them, one to the other, student after student. Belief, light, hope.
“I’m not sure if I can get up,” Miroslav said with a wry smile. “But I am in. I’d follow you anywhere.”
Jed hoisted him up and wrapped an arm under his shoulder. “Not alone,” he whispered to Miroslav. “Didn’t you hear her?”
“I’m in too,” Miranda said. She met my eyes and I knew she understood how much would rest on her.
I felt Renee shift on her feet behind me and turned to see her tears dribble down her cheeks. Her hand was over her mouth as her eyes filled with wonder. The cloud faded, weakened as each heart shone with courage. I’d never seen anything as beautiful. I was fighting to hold back my own tears and turned to Jones’s kid.
“If you run, all we ask is that you keep the confidence of your family.” The tentacle dangled there, straining to reach him. “And these guys are your family.”
He gripped his knees, the girl next to him fought her own battle. She gulped back her breath. “Sawyer found the ones who ran . . . he . . .” She shook her head. Tears flowed from her eyes.
“He was once terrified like you.” Frei knelt beside me. “He lost everything he cared about. They took everything from him.” There was no judgment in her voice only regret.
The girl bit her lip. “I don’t want to be like him.” She got to her feet. “I don’t want anyone else to be like him either.”
Every student was on their feet bar one.
One boy.
The cloud was anchored overhead, gripping on. No one spoke, no one demanded, or berated him for his fear. Instead I could feel every one of them urging him on. Urging him on with every ounce of love they had.
Light, warmth, the energy crackled around the room.
“What are you scared of?” I asked.
He met my eyes. “I don’t know where I would go. I’ve never left here. Where would I go? How am I going to look after myself?”
Renee sniffled behind me and I knew why. I was once the kid who sat in front of me.
I ran. I ran so fast that none of the guards could catch me. I ran to the only place that I could hide. I was on the roof before anyone realized. Not to jump, just to think. The place was littered with old pallets and plastic crates but I could breathe here . . . breathe in fresh air. I was going to faint. I couldn’t process it.
The panic hammered through my heart. I’d never survive out there. Out there hated me, in here was bad enough but I knew in here, I knew how it worked. Out there I didn’t know, I didn’t know a thing.
“Aeron, please. Calm down. Listen to me . . . for a moment.”
I spun to look at Renee. The guards were all gathered down in the yard below.
“What did I do to you? What did I ever do to you?” I picked up a broken crate and hurled it down at the guards below, making them scatter.
“Nothing, Aeron. You should have never been here for this long. You could go to Nan’s cabin. Maybe she—”
“She’s dead. That’s why I met Sam. Nan abandoned me too!” I picked up a pallet. “How am I gonna feed myself?”
Renee moved forward. I hurled the pallet from the roof. “You’ll find a way. You can find peace there. Nature . . . fishing . . . Do you like fishing?”
“I hate fishing! I know what it does to them.” I hurled another pallet.
“How about gardening? Hiking in the woods? Aeron, there’s a beautiful world of nature out there . . . waiting for you.”
I rubbed my arms. I felt cold all of a sudden, really cold and tired. My jaw trembled and I lost every ounce of energy I had. I slumped onto the roof. There was a world out there. A world that I had resigned myself that I would never see. Now Renee was offering it to me. I looked past the concrete to the patchwork of fields beyond—so green, so brig
ht, so vivid. Life in abundance.
“What if I end up on the street?”
Renee sat beside me and took my gloved hand. “It won’t be easy but I will have to see you once a month to satisfy parole requirements. The girls will expect letters and I’m pretty sure that there’s a set of high heels waiting for you to hang.”
I squeezed Renee’s hand. Then I felt something warm on my cold cheeks. I took off my glove and touched it. I looked down and my fingers were wet. I rubbed them together and looked up to the sky—was it raining? Warm rain? No—I was crying.
I was free.
I took the boy’s trembling hands in mine. “You like the mountains?”
He nodded. “I’ve seen them in books. The ones with snow on top.”
“I know a place just like that, in fact I ain’t long left there.” I held onto him, knowing only I could reach him now. “I’d never left the state before. When I got out of the institution, I didn’t think I’d make it through the bus ride home.”
“So how did you?” His eyes twinkled with tears. “How did you do it?”
“Baby steps,” Renee said. She knelt on the other side of me and took his hand. “I’ll help you.”
“Just like she helped me.” I smiled at her, realizing how much she’d done for me all over again.
“Hey, Stevie,” Jed called out. “You can join us if you want to.”
“How does being free sound to you?” Frei asked and offered him her hand.
“Good.” He nodded. The tentacle recoiled. “I’d like that.”
She smiled. “Help us free the others too?”
The boy took a breath. He glanced from me to Renee and back up to Frei. Energy spread through him. Light, courage, hope. The ripple of something flitted into my consciousness. It was the passage Frei and I had talked about. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
He held out his hand and gripped Frei’s.
The fear cloud shriveled and disappeared as he rose to his feet. “I’m in.”
Chapter 43
FREI DIVIDED THE students into groups. There were sixteen, not counting Kevin, left in all. Her group of four would help set up a series of booby traps throughout the school that would slow down anyone pursuing us on gala night. They would also create a diversion in case we needed a well-timed distraction. It was a dangerous task but the group was enthusiastic. I admired their bravery.
Jones’s pair had their wires back on but this time Frei could hear everything that was being said. Both were keeping a log of the staff routines and the guard patrol routes ready. Being sneaky was their thing. They were playing to their strengths.
My group had a mixture of things to do. Jed, Sawyer’s kid, and the boys were systematically darting kids with blow pipes. It looked pretty mean but Frei had given the “darts” to them. I didn’t understand the specifics as it was way over my head but somehow the dart injected a GPS chip under their skin. It didn’t hurt apart from the initial impact but it would give our guys at CIG a chance to keep track of all the students.
Of course, every time anyone came and told us that Jed was being a bully, we had to go yell at him like we meant it. Renee was the best at it. If her aura wasn’t in full swing, I would have thought she was mad. Good thing Jed was used to getting hollered at ’cause it went straight over his head.
Ty, Jane, and Leigh-Anne had started packing away the year groups’ belongings and smuggling them out to a school bus that was in the garage. I was sure it hadn’t ever been used and was there for show but Frei seemed pretty confident that it was going to get us out.
Owens had stayed away. It felt like she was keeping her head down after messing up with Kevin and Miranda. I still didn’t trust her and I’d caught her watching from her office window a couple of times when I was in the quadrant. I’d felt her glaring when Renee had stopped me to ask something.
Jessie had caught Frei’s eye, so she had become mini-Frankenfrei. Jessie had been taught such moral skills as hot-wiring a car, how to remove its battery, and break into just about any space that could fit her. It was funny to watch. Frei looked like she had a soft spot for the kid.
Talking of soft spots, my guy Miroslav was trying to figure out a way to get Miranda to play to a recording during the performance. The problem was, there was no margin for error when she played to the recording. She was having difficulty just moving her wrist to mime it in one section.
Miroslav had thought about me playing and recording it, slowing on that section so she could use that. It was difficult knowing how to work around electrics blowing up near me. The second I got near a microphone, it let off a high-pitched whine.
He was panicking. The performance had to buy time for everyone to escape. No played masterpiece, no convincingly played masterpiece and we were all busted.
Miroslav, Miranda, and I kept it to ourselves. I wanted to give them time to figure something out and Frei had good as said that without that performance, she’d have to leave the other kids behind.
The day before the gala found Miroslav sweating over the electrics, Miranda in tears, and me trying my best not to be affected by them enough to keep them calm.
It wasn’t easy.
I knew I should have told Frei but I couldn’t give up. Even if I was on the verge of panicking myself.
By the time Renee wandered into the little rehearsal room we were camped in, I was close to throwing the borrowed violin through the window.
“What’s wrong?”
Okay, now that was freaky. I was looking out the window not at the door and I could feel her come in. She couldn’t see my face or know what I was thinking so how did she know what I felt?
“Nothin’,” I chimed as cheerily as I could.
“Aeron, I know very well that there is just by looking at you.” I got the flashed image of her putting her hands on her hips. I glanced at Miroslav and Miranda who exchanged a look. Good thing Frei had the whole floor scrambled and had done something with the locks. Only her, Renee, Me, Miranda, and Miroslav could get in.
I sighed and turned around. “Apparently I mess up her ability to hide stuff,” I told them. “But then, I guess you figured that I ain’t really called Samson.”
Renee shut her eyes and mumbled enough cuss words that Miranda giggled.
“It’s not funny,” she muttered, rubbing her hand over her face. “Every time, Lorelei.”
I sighed as they kept on laughing. “You want to give them a zip code too?”
Renee turned and walked to the door. She shut it, held onto the handle, took a deep breath, and turned back.
Miranda giggled again. I was glad she had something to cheer her up.
“Aeron.” Miroslav gazed at me. “From the Celtic or just a derivative of the Hebrew Aaron?”
There was a Celtic version? I thought my folks had just made it up. “Aaron.”
He beamed at me. “Mountain of strength in Hebrew. Wild berry in Celtic.” He cocked his head. “It suits you.”
I folded my arms. “’Cause I look like a hulking great mountain or that I’m a fruit?”
“Because,” he grinned at me, battering his long eyelashes, “it’s beautiful . . . like you.” He blushed.
Miranda nodded as if in agreement and Miroslav went back to fiddling with the crackling equipment.
Renee let out a heavy sigh. “You too?” She rolled her eyes, muttering away to herself. “At this rate we’ll need to start a conference.”
I was too busy blushing myself, I could feel my cheeks roasting. I didn’t quite know how to take Miroslav’s words. I rubbed my hand over the back of my neck and shrugged. “Hey, wait.” I frowned. “Conference?”
Miranda’s giggles turned to tears, which then turned to big howling sobs.
Renee hurried to her. “I’m teasing her, I—”
She yelped, gripped her wrist, and snapped it away from Miranda who yelped too. I winced with my own shot of pain.
“What happened?” Renee s
hook her wrist and tried to examine Miranda’s but kept shaking hers . . . like she felt it.
I put my hands on my hips. “She can’t play. It’s not healing. We’re trying to figure out how she can mime but the stupid piece of junk ain’t liking my playing.”
Renee bit her lip as she moved the wrist about. “How long has it been like this?”
“Drinkin’ with Jed.” I put down my violin. We were busted now anyhow.
“Can’t you fix it?” Her eyes met mine. I sighed and looked at the two teenagers now staring at me for an explanation.
“Do I look like a doctor?” I shot Renee a frown.
“Forget the stupid cover.” She waved her arm in the air like it still hurt her. “It’s important. We can’t do this without her.”
Because we all needed reminding of that.
“I drove you too hard, I know, I’m sorry. It’s not going to make you suffer like before, is it?” She raised her eyebrows, her clear gray eyes pleading with me. “I’ll help you to—”
“I can’t,” I whispered, hoping she’d quit looking at me that way.
Miroslav and Miranda had hope in their eyes.
“Can’t or won’t?” Her scowl appeared. Here came her temper.
“Can’t. I would if I could but I ain’t got that ability no more.” I was now getting gawked at, something I hated.
“When, why?” Renee’s temper had vanished and her aura did the concern swish and wriggle like always. I loved her aura.
“Don’t matter.” I tried to smile, pretending that it didn’t suck. “Still causing chaos with electrical stuff.”
“Aeron.” She took me by the hand. “When?”
I glanced at Miroslav and Miranda who were trying their best not to look like they were watching. I didn’t know what they were thinking but if I was them, I’d want a pretty good explanation.
“Now’s not the time, okay. We got a per—”
“Tell me. That’s a direct order.” Her aura rumbled like her stormy eyes.
Miroslav shot me an “uh oh” look.
“I fixed you when I shouldn’t have, okay?” I ran my hand through my hair. “You didn’t ask for my help, so I got a load of burdens taken off me till I learn my lesson.”
